


The Violinist at The End of the World

by chaoticrandomness



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Gen, Inspired by Music, Pre-Virtue's Last Reward, Virtue's Last Reward Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 14:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4708637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticrandomness/pseuds/chaoticrandomness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snake, Clover, music, and the apocalypse. Written for day 2 of 999 week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Violinist at The End of the World

I taught myself how to play the violin after the first game. Most people said that I only did it to distract myself from thinking about death, for what reason would a boy with no vision and a prosthetic left arm even go anywhere near an instrument that required both vision and finger dexterity?  

 

I actually did it because I've always been drawn to sound. My sister used to describe what things looked like, but I didn't want to tell her that it didn't matter that I couldn't see, for the rest of my senses created a world of their own. 

 

_It's impossible for me to feel like there's anything missing from the world, Clover. But I still enjoy talking to you, so you can keep spinning your stories._

 

_You're going to go on to do something amazing, and I'll be helping you every step of the way there._

 

Sound was everywhere. Sounds were paintbrushes and canvases and created a vibrant world filled with everything from my sister's narrations, and the violin was one of the most beautiful. Eventually, I got to a point where my neighbors would stop thinking of the politest way to eject me from my apartment, and everything seemed to be going back to normal for a bit. 

 

I was  _incredibly_ wrong. 

 

_I should've told Clover not to have opened mail from random people, nor written the man in the letter back about their lead on the first game's perpetrator. I should've locked my door and called the police and done a million other things, but here we are now with the giant mess we've all made._

 

The last thing I did before my sister died was play for her and give her another four-leafed clover. 

 

* * *

 

 

Clover disappeared one day in 2027. More accurately, she just blinked out of existence one day while I was tuning, and never came back. 

 

Ever since the second game ended, we'd been able to sense each other's location, and had honed it to the point where I could sense her in another nation. 

 

_Why are you gone, Clover? What are you doing?! Where are you?!_

 

No one would answer me. In fact, everyone had disappeared off the face of the planet after she left, and I had to resort to calling random strangers and putting up crudely-drawn missing posters. 

 

_She's dead, Light. Everyone's dead now, and the world is harsh and sterile and still..._

 

The day I left my apartment with a pile of missing posters and a violin, the breeze was cold and people were talking about Mars. 

 

_If you're out there, Clover, please send me a message. A signal. Something. Anything that'll prove to me that you're not dead..._

 

It began to snow as I was putting up the posters, and one of the flakes landed in my hands.

 

It felt like a four-leafed clover. 

 

* * *

 

 

"Where is Clover Field?!" 

 

The people at the other end of the phone were most likely under the impression that I couldn't speak at first, and then gave me deluges of information. 

 

_She's dead. She's comatose. She's being tortured by Free The Soul. She's being indoctrinated into the Myrmidons. She's on Mars. She's dead. She's dead. She's dead..._

 

My sister was suffering some awful fate while I was still in my comfortable apartment with my violin, and I couldn't do a single thing to get her back. I called every single random phone number I could make up, yet none of them could tell me how to find her.

 

_What were you expecting, Light?! That guessing at random would actually work this time?!_

 

Eventually, they stopped answering the phone. Then my phone stopped working entirely. Then the television stopped working and my neighbors stopped existing and the world turned cold and silent until all that seemed to be left were myself and my violin and the music I kept stored in my head. 

 

_This is what happens when the world ends, Light. And you can't do a single thing to stop it._

* * *

 

 

I never found out about Radical-6 until the day the bombs went off. 

 

_There's no reason to forewarn the man who can't see about an illness that's already killed so many people. They have better things to worry about._

 

The loudspeaker said that a terrorist group had planted four antimatter bombs around the world, and the nuclear holocaust would happen if we all didn't evacuate to someplace underground, before a bright flash cut everything off. 

 

_Why can I see now, of all times?!_

 

_Clover, was this what you wanted to show me before you died and I did nothing...._

 

The world is a cacophony now. Sound is everywhere, but it's the sounds of panic and fear and despair and destruction,  _not_ the beautiful melody of the rest of my life.  _  
_

_Is it possible, then, for a single person to set all this sound back to normal?_

 

_A single person put you into those games twice. You can play music for a little bit._

 

I don't know what compels me to rush out the door of my apartment with my violin as the antimatter bombs go off. I don't know why I'm taking calmly tuning it at the entrance to the shelter and playing the pieces my sister loved during the end of the world, when it's so much more logical for me to just play at home. 

 

_Because you have no one left to live for. Why not end your life with something beautiful?_

 

The world is slightly calmer now. I don't know how anyone can hear me, but people can definitely see a blind man with a prosthetic left arm at the entrance to a bomb shelter playing music during the end of the world. 

 

It doesn't matter that I'm inevitably going to die from exposure to the bombs or that I only know little snippets of pieces. Nothing else matters, when the sound is so beautiful.... 

 

_Clover, can you hear me?_

 

_Clover, I'm coming...._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, I can write happy stuff.


End file.
